Body recovered, 2 men hospitalized after small plane crash north of Ramona

RAMONA (CNS) - On Monday, authorities recovered the body of a 20-year-old woman killed in a weekend plane crash on a mountainside in a remote back-country area north of Ramona.

Personnel with the Federal Aviation Administration, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the Medical Examiner's Office retrieved the body from the wreckage of the Cessna 172 about 10:30 a.m., roughly 20 hours after the aircraft went down in a rural area.

Two other occupants of the plane, men ages 25 and 28, escaped serious injury when it crashed for unknown reasons during an instructional flight about 2:30 p.m. Sunday. They were able to hike out of the immediate area and use their cellphones to call for help, telling authorities they were not sure exactly where they were, according to Cal Fire.

About an hour later, searchers located the downed plane in an area inaccessible to motor vehicles and rescued the men. Both of them were taken to a hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening trauma.

Efforts to recover the body of the deceased woman, whose name has not been released, were suspended at nightfall Sunday.

A large crane helicopter will be used to recover the wreckage of the airplane, sheriff's Sgt. David Collins said.

At the time of the crash, the Cessna, registered to American Aviation Academy, was flying out of Gillespie Field in El Cajon as an instructor/student flight.